ChinaConsumer goods2023 – ongoingHongsheng Toy (Yiwu)
AI-translated sales videos for overseas buyers
A Yiwu toy stall owner used AI to dub her sales videos into other languages and reported revenue up 10-20%
Problem
Sun Lijuan runs Hongsheng Toy, a family toy factory with a 13.5-square-metre stall in Yiwu's international wholesale market. She did not speak the languages of many overseas buyers, and producing foreign-language marketing was beyond a business of that size.
Approach
In October 2023 the market's operator, Zhejiang China Commodities City Group, launched a trade-focused language model and AI tools on its Chinagoods platform, including a feature that turns a Chinese video into versions in 36 languages with matching lip movements. Sun was among the first merchants to use it: she recorded product introductions on her phone and published English, Arabic, Spanish and Russian versions on overseas social media. She later used AI for some product design as well.
Results
Takeaway
The market operator built the tools and offered them to tenants, so a stall-sized business could produce foreign-language marketing without staff or agencies. The sales figures came from the owner and state media, with no independent verification available.
Categories
- Size
- Small business
- Industry
- Consumer goods
- Business function
- Marketing and sales
- Innovation type
- Process innovationBusiness model innovation
- AI technology
- Generative AI
- Adoption
- Off-the-shelf tool or platform
- Evidence
- Company's own claim
Sources
Source summaries
Yicai profiles Yiwu merchants using AI, led by Sun Lijuan of Hongsheng Toy. Her English video drew more than 100,000 views abroad and an order for 20,000 items from Poland, and she says revenue rose 10 to 20 percent in the second half of 2023 over the first half. Yicai also describes the Chinagoods tools that translate videos into 36 languages.
Xinhua describes how market staff recorded Sun's product video in October 2023 and returned multilingual versions two days later, after which several hundred customers contacted her and a Mexico City supermarket owner travelled to Yiwu to buy. It reports that the market group released a trade language model and the Chinagoods AI platform that month, and that more than 10,000 merchants had tried the 36-language video feature.
Xinhua reports on Sun Lijuan and her 13.5-square-metre Hongsheng Toy stall. It says AI brought her more overseas clients and orders, lowered operating costs and helped with some product design, and that she can turn a phone video into 36 languages. It adds that nearly 30,000 Yiwu merchants use AI tools regularly.
Full details are in the original sources.
